"your brain gets smart and your head gets dumb" - Smash Mouth, 'All Star'

All Star

It was a long day. I'm sick. (I feel like I should qualify that with some comment. I'm ALWAYS sick. I blame the 3 year old and his germs.) I missed school Monday, though, and my students miss me when I'm gone. They run up to me and complain about the sub/the work I left for them/what happened that weekend/some school policy. I usually mock them. They like it. They're weird.

Anyway, my seniors were in the lab. They don't have government their senior year, so I like to pepper my senior English with current events. This week, they had to find an article about politics and do a review/summary/opinion thing. I'm always amused when I turn them loose in the lab, because they're constantly finding articles or webpages that they think will interest me, and they wave their hands and call me over. I see other teachers in the lab, and they sit at their own computer, ignoring their kids, and I laugh.

I had gone over to the teacher's desk in the computer lab, recording attendance, when one of my students walked up to me. "Samuel" is the class valedictorian. He's in my lower level senior class because he's a math and science person, and he's already taking like 500 AP classes, and if he's not taking AP English, then he may as well take the most basic level because it counts the same as the average level.

The head of the department was horrified by this. She doesn't want to set a precedent for kids taking the lowest level of English and still getting college credit. She told the Samuel's mother was a 'helicopter mother', always calling and emailing and complaning. I stay in close contact with all of my 130 students' parents, so I wasn't worried about it.

I think Samuel was a bit shell-shocked when he first came into my class. We're different. We laugh a lot (go figure). My teaching methods aren't always pen and paper. My students get to put themselves into most of what they do. My room is colorful and silly and my discipline, in most cases, consists of a scathing look followed by a grin. And this young man who walked into my room with his shoulders tensed, his eyes flitting from one side to the other, his pen in hand... well, after a week or two, he RELAXED.

Samuel brings me his application essays to proofread. I give advice on applying to Harvard, Princeton, Ohio State. We discuss how he needs to use APA citations in one essay, or why he should strengthen his topic sentences in another. And during class, he listens intently (I do teach, of course) to my picky essay requirements for my class or my interpretation of class in society.

Anyway, I digress. Samuel walked up to me in the computer lab. He had a big grin on his freckled face. "I got my ACT results this weekend," he said, hardly able to contain himself. "Yes?" I asked, in anticipation.

"I went up THREE POINTS in English!" he burst out. "Three points!" His eyes widened.

I congratulated him, and he continued, "It's because of your class. I remember taking the test, and seeing quotation format - you taught me that. There were problem-solving skills - I learned that from you." He went on and on, specifically listing skills that my "lower level" English class taught him - and that the "honors" classes did not.

Now, I know kids don't listen when they're taught things. I'm sure Samuel has been exposed to these pieces of information before. But sometimes, my fellow teachers are far too uptight about their teaching methods. Sometimes, even the valedictorian of the class needs to laugh, to get examples, to be coaxed into learning instead of forced to it.

My "teaching" ego went up a number of points today. At a time when the administration hates me, my fellow English teachers all but shun me, and I'm given the lowest classes to mold, I get the news that I am effective, that I do make a difference. Once I get over Sickness #43952, I'm going to walk into my classroom with my head up high. My room is not a repository for the criminally insane and emotionally damaged. Nope. My room is an area where learning takes place - just in a slightly different way.

Also, Samuel's mom? She's never contacted me. Helicopter mom, my ass. Ha.